Breakfast with Scot (2007)

Breakfast with Scot is not refreshing, quirky, comedic or, frankly good. From the get go, Tom Cavangh's Eric is entirely unlikeable while Ben Shenkman's Sam seems to stick with him "just because." There's no warmth between the two, which makes every single scene they occupy together painful to watch. In fact, there's aren't two characters in this entire film who have any kind of chemistry. Not brothers, not parent and child, not coworkers, no one. It's entirely too telling that Eric and Sam (indeed, everyone else in the film) refrains from touching one another until the last 10 minutes. Maybe there's a message there about how distant these people are, but the movie is so dense and concerned with trying to be high minded to figure it all out. I have nothing but disdain for this entire endeavor from beginning to end. Unrealistic, maddening and ultimately mindboggling. And I haven't even talked about the kid, his guardian or any of the myriad subplots the story throws at the viewer.

This is a sweet, if rather formulaic family comedy. The genuine laughs seem a little few and far-between, but I really liked the twist on functional nuclear family life, as well as the examination of gay identity. That is the only thing that makes this film special, really. The thing I liked most was the homosexual main character's hilarious worry that his lover's flamboyant nephew might "make him gay", in the paranoid, homophobic Republican sense. Very cute and heartwarming, but you've seen this before.